Calming a twitstorm: O2's masterclass in dealing with 'outage outrage'

This is a guest post by Jonathan Lyon and Alex Georgiou from marketing agency Wunderman's social team. O2 is not a Wunderman client.

On 11 July, O2 experienced widespread network problems affecting hundreds of thousands of its customers. Those who were affected suffered a complete loss of 2G and 3G network services, crashing mobile, landline and broadband connectivity.

Thousands of seriously irked customers instantly took to Twitter to vent their frustrations at being starved of their vital O2 supply, spoiling to let the company know how badly they had been let down, even threatening to cancel their contracts and move over to other networks.

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@O2 was inundated. During the two-day network outage, new Twitter followers increased from an average of 155 to 13,500 per day. O2 quickly became a hot topic in the Twittersphere, with a 4,836 percent uplift in people talking,

@replying and re-tweeting.

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Using Wunderman's Social Favourability Engine (a tool that interrogates comments, posts, tweets, blogs and forums to track brand perception) to categorise the Twitter conversation by basic emotions we found that the emotions most frequently expressed about the network outage were anger and sadness. Approaching the end of the first day, this mass of negative tweets had reached an estimated 1.7 million people.

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O2 was in the midst of a PR nightmare. It's easy to imagine the team that manages its Twitter account choosing to recoil behind their corporate bulwarks, responding with the textbook "we are sorry for this temporary disruption to our service, please bear with us", and replying only to those who didn't issue violent threats or demand immediate compensation.

But this was not the case; O2 took everyone by surprise, not least its most voracious critics, by responding in the most open, honest and above all human way possible. It's as if O2 ripped up the corporate guidelines and replaced them with your best mate.

The success of O2's response is evident in the way the majority of Twitter conversation quickly turned from an outpouring of anger to a celebration of the way the company was handling the crisis via its @O2 Twitter handle. Anger or sadness quickly gave way to happiness or an expression of love for the @replies received. This extraordinarily positive reaction far extended the reach of O2's response, effectively turning attention away from the negative consequences of the network outage to its refreshing approach to crisis management.

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@O2 achieved this phenomenal turn of events with only a 64 percent increase in daily tweets -- this turn around was not driven by a significant increase in tweet volume, but by its tone of voice and humour peppered responses. So did they get lucky with a few witty responses, or is there more we can learn from @O2's approach to crisis management? Let's take a closer look at the content:

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Sure, this is an obvious one, but when someone airs their frustrations, generally at the very least they expect an apology.

@O2 was quick to admit their error, not shying away from the problem and offering sincere apologies. Following admission and apology however was always the determination to make sure each customer was being treated as an individual.

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The @O2 Twitter manager was only able to relay a limited amount of information to disgruntled followers. In order to make the delivery of information more impactful, each customer was answered in a very personal manner rather than simply being dealt set replies. Individual situations were acknowledged and used as a way of personalising each response.

The community manager was super quick at addressing every tweet that came their way, proactively getting involved in conversations that didn't necessarily require a direct response. Through this action they were able to contain conversations, demonstrate they were really listening, and keep the fire at bay.

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Here is a great example of the kind of tweet social media school tells budding community managers to ignore. @O2 however took everyone by surprise, responding in a way that sensitively exposed the abuse as puerile whilst demonstrating their commitment to getting the job done. This single tweet soon found itself being re-tweeted and passed on as an image, attracting much wider attention to @O2's customer service efforts.

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Customer (@Beckyyyy123): "Whoever is tweeting for @O2 deserves some sort of giant cake"

O2 response: "If it's a giant, Jaffa Cake, I'm in"

Customer (@Beckyyyy123): "@O2 your wish is my command"

O2 response: "Awesomes! Sorry about the kamikaze comma in the last tweet. Finger s are numb."

Twitter soon blew up with mass support for @O2's good-humored responses. This was met with gracious appreciation and used to reinforce O2's determination to make each and every customer happy.

These are just a few examples of an altogether really successful approach by @O2. It's worth checking out the feed for more.

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O2 took the Twitter crisis management handbook and threw it out of the window. They've tackled this issue head on, with bravery, humanity and, above all, humour.

A trusted and experienced community manager has been given free reign to respond to tweets in a human and personal way, lending their personality and good humor to that of the brand. A somewhat risky strategy, but in this case one that has paid dividends.

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